The Leftovers, “Two Boats and a Helicopter”
“If we can no longer distinguish innocent from guilty, then everything that happened to us, all our suffering, is meaningless.”
In the wake of a great flood, a man stands trapped on top of a submerged building, gazing up at the sky. After a while, a boat slices through the water and the man at the helm calls up, asking the suffering man to come down. The man refuses: he’s waiting for God to save him. That boat leaves and another comes along and offers assistance. The man refuses again and claims that God will send him a miracle. A helicopter comes along, yet the man refuses again, the water covering his head. God will save him.
He dies, and at the gates of heaven, broken-hearted, he asks why he was not saved. An angel replies, “We sent you two boats and a helicopter!”
The joke – if it can really be called that – gives this spectacular episode of The Leftovers its title, and its idea of faith and suffering serves as the pulsing heart of the episode and perhaps the show. The entire episode focuses on the life of Matt Jamison, the preacher that’s been seen around the town, distributing papers with people taken by the Departure, which he steadfastly denies is the Rapture. These people were criminals – they gambled, sold drugs, stole, lied, cheated, raped, and murdered, and yet they were taken away. The idea that these people would be immortalized and remembered amongst all the innocents taken away is something that Matt cannot accept.
“Two Boats and Helicopter” could easily function as a moving and excellent short film if not for the few elements of the premise that were given in the previous two episodes. It’s a strange and bold choice for the show to make – to drop many of the characters and plotlines from the previous episodes and instead focus on someone we barely knew. It doesn’t seem likely that the show will have every episode like this one, but hopefully it will delve as deep into the other characters as it has with Matt.
The overarching question of why people disappeared might never be answered in the show, and it’s a question that’s not supposed to be answered. What matters is how the people left carry on after the tragedy. However, while the strengths of this show will likely lie in character moments like the ones found all across this episode, it’s good to check in with the rest of the characters and move the overall story along, even if it’s just a bit. Matt manages to check in with several other characters here, most notably Nora, who’s revealed to be his sister. They watched their parents burn to death and grew up facing hardships together. Now, Nora’s family is gone and the Departure has essentially taken away Matt’s wife Mary as well, yet while Nora’s trying to move on in whatever small ways she can, Matt stubbornly clings to his quest. He’s intensely sympathetic regardless of your religious perspective, yet it’s difficult to not feel the depth of his betrayal when he reveals to Nora that her husband was having an affair. It accomplishes nothing – it doesn’t make Nora more inclined to support his cause. Why would it? Of course she’s not eager to add her husband to the list of the immoral departed. It’s spiteful, thrown out because of his desperation, yes, but still unforgiveable.
Matt – after being beaten up by a loved one featured in his papers – meets with Kevin in the emergency room. Kevin offers a home-cooked Sunday dinner, just like old times, but Matt refuses. This exchange, along with his knowledge of the secret cache of money hidden in the Garvey’s house, makes it clear that the two were friends, or at least that the Garveys may have gone to Matt’s church. There’s something else here, an issue with a judge, that’s repeatedly hinted at yet never fully explained. There’s more to this, much more.
Matt is convinced that all the suffering in his life – his battle with leukemia, the death of his parents, his wife’s irrevocable condition – is somehow building character, or at the very least causing some good for someone in the world. Yet even after he miraculously wins enough money, brutally beats up and potentially kills the man who attempts to steal the money from him, and in an act of kindness we’ve rarely seen in this show, he pauses to help a wounded Guilty Remnant member, he’s injured and misses the opportunity. The church is taken…by none other than the very organization he tried to be kind towards. Even Matt is left with a boiling rage against these people, these silent punching bags of the world. Have the Guilty Remnant purposefully offered themselves up as punching bags, as sponges for all the hate and confusion and powerlessness pent-up inside the rest of humanity? Can we blame them?
Matt’s darkness is horrifying to watch, especially when after all his pain and loss he’s about to have the money needed to save his church stolen from him. Enraged, he leaps on the man and brutally bashes his face in the pavement, roaring with a fury directed at everyone: God, for seemingly abandoning the world and taking the wrong people, himself for all his failings, the Guilty Remnant, all the evil in the world…everything.
All of the suffering inflicted on the leftovers, on all of us, has no purpose. Religions, philosophies have grappled with suffering since the dawn of humanity, with no clear conclusions. Just like Matt fears, suffering is meaningless. Nora losing her family was not a test. Terrible things just happen, and while humanity can trudge on or even learn from them, that doesn’t diminish their awfulness. The deaths of innocents can never be anything but a horrific tragedy, a bloody, pointless, loss.
The Leftovers will never be a happy show. The darkness and confusion of its world is scary and frankly tough to watch at times. Yet if the rest of the series is half as good as “Two Boats and a Helicopter”, it will be an amazing series that forces us to come to terms with the raw emotions and struggles of loss and being human.
Tidbits:
- Apologies for not having a review of the second episode – vacation calls. Yet I’m back, and the show has really kicked up a notch. I’m really excited to see what happens next, though I’m not sure if my emotions can handle it.
- The first two episodes were intriguing, but mysteries mean nothing if we don’t care about the people affected by them. At this point in the show, Matt is clearly my favorite. Hopefully the show can cover the other characters this well.
- The echoes of Lindelof’s other show Lost continue to make themselves felt in the Leftovers, especially in the surreal dream sequence that follows Matt’s head injury. It was an elegantly efficient way to further explore his backstory while also being trippy and quite interesting to watch.
- Kevin has his dogs and the deer, while Matt has his pigeons. What’s happened to the animals? Is there more to them than just symbolic devices?
